◆The updated contents of Ver1.3.0 -The new game mode added. You can compete highscore with other people through Game Center! ....

Voice Fantasy is what you get when you crack open a 16-bit-era Square Enix RPG, yank out the storyline, the towns, the overworld, and the ability to control your party or level up… and in its place put a mechanic to create characters using your voice. This is an app that plays itself, using principles based on the volume and pitch of your vocal input. Yes, it’s bizarre.

In order to play Voice Fantasy, you need either a device with a built-in microphone– like all current-gen iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches– or a plug-in microphone that works with your device. Once you have that, plus a pair of thumbs and vocal chords, you’re good to go.

The first thing you do in Voice Fantasy is create characters. To do this, you simply hold a record button while you say something– anything you want. Based on the pitch and volume of what you say, your character will be given stats and assigned to one of eight classes, like warrior, mage, etc. You can also end up as various beasts, which is pretty cool. There’s an onscreen chart that shows what pitch and volume you should aim for if you have a certain class in mind, but it’s not easy to get exactly what you want. If you’re not satisfied with the result, you can try again.

Square Enix FTW!

Now comes the combat. After you’ve created your characters, you can pit them against each other in combat (one-on-one or two-on-two), or have them battle against computer-created enemies to fight the big boss, the Demon King. Either way, the fighting is fully automated, so you can just sit back, drink some tea, and take it in. The one neat thing about combat is that your characters say whatever you said to create them each time they attack, but with changed pitch. It’s pretty adorable.

Once the fighting ends, you can save or delete the characters you’ve created. The game can hold up to 50 saved characters, so you don’t have to be picky, although the ones with better stats are obviously more desirable.

That’s all there is to it. Since your only input is creating characters and choosing which ones to fight, Voice Fantasy isn’t really a game. The premise might sound similar to Square Enix’s Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes – Encore, but that game is far more robust than this one.

Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?

Voice Fantasy suffers from two major problems: A severe shortage of content, and your characters’ inability to level up. The most fun thing to do for single players is to fight the Demon King, but each attempt only lasts a couple of minutes. And since you can’t control the combat, you’ll get frustrated when you watch your weakened character choose to attack rather than use a healing spell that would have saved his life. And since your characters don’t level up, there’s no reason to keep playing with them unless they have godly stats.

The way to get the most value out of Voice Fantasy is to play it with friends. Up to four people can use goofy voices to create characters and then watch as they battle it out. Unfortunately, this won’t keep anyone over the age of eight entertained for more than a couple of minutes. Mostly it’ll make you wish you had more to do in the game.

So Voice Fantasy takes a single neat idea and bases an entire game around it. Unfortunately, the idea isn’t strong enough to support an entire game. So what we end up with is a half-assed game that plays itself. And who wants that?

Connect with us

Hot Videosfrom the past week

With recent high-quality releases like Magic Touch: Wizard for Hire and Gunbrick, developer Nitrome has been kicking butt lately. The studio is gearing up for one more iOS release: Silly Sausage in Meat Land, a puzzle / action game featuring a wiener dog whose body goes on for miles.

Do you like auto-running platformers? Do you like Ancient Egyptian art? If so, you’ll want to check out this cool-looking game. It kind of looks like the recent PlayStation 4 game Apotheon, but Egyptian rather than Greek, and auto-running rather than directly controlled. You can download it here for $1.99.

Silly Sausage in Meat Land is the latest game from Nitrome. This awesomely-named action game apparently plays like a mix between Retry and the old Nokia game Snake. Take a look at AppSpy’s video footage of the game, and keep an eye out for Silly Sausage’s release this week.

AppSpy’s review of Kiloo’s hack-and-slash adventure pegs it as a more casual take on the Infinity Blade franchise. There’s fewer things to collect, less ways to gear up, and you’ll ultimately hit the inevitable grind-or-pay wall that accompanies many free-to-play titles, but you’ll have a good time for an hour or so.